bluntmoney.com

Want to see me paralyzed with indecision? Give me a thousand bucks to spend on something fun. If it can’t be a trip somewhere, I’m pretty much at a loss. This doesn’t mean I don’t want anything. There ARE things that I want. When I don’t have the money, I CAN think of things I’d like to buy.

For example, I’d love to have a leather sectional. But if I have the money and go to actually BUY it, I find making the purchase extremely difficult. I think of all the other things I could be doing with the money instead. I think about my list of goals that I have. I look for just the right item, and rarely find it. Many times I decide to wait instead, indefinitely.

I even find it difficult to buy things when they’re something that I’ve wanted for months and months that I know I can afford. (Like the iPhone.) Or things that I’ve saved up for. It pains me to part with the money.

I finally realized (during a recent failed attempt to buy a sectional) that the reason I feel like this is because it feels like deciding AGAINST everything else. If I buy the couch, I can’t get new windows with that money. I can’t invest. I can’t donate it. I can’t do anything else with that money, because it will be GONE. But as long as I still have the money, I could do anything with it.

So I agonize and agonize about stuff like that. I don’t think this is necessarily a terrible thing (it’s better than being unable to control my spending, for example) but it’s not really fun. On the plus side, once I finally DO buy something I’m usually extremely happy with it. (My most recent splurge, for example, was the tree that I’m so happy about it.)